The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distribution of the pronunciations (mainly /ju, u,?/) of orthographic 〈u〉 in British English. /ju, u,?/ have incurred many complicated problems regarding the status of /j/, the underling form of these vowels, etc. Chomsky and Halle (1968) argue that the pronunciations of 〈u〉 are derived from Middle English lax /?/; it becomes /ju/ when it occurs in an open syllable; it remains /?/ when it is preceded by one of the nonnasal labials /p, b, f, v/ and followed by /l,?,?/; elsewhere, that is, in a closed syllable, it becomes /?/. It is expected that the pronunciations of 〈u〉 and their contexts are reflected in the present-day pronunciations of 〈u〉. To check this I analyzed the monomorphemic words in the CELEX lexical database; [?] appears mostly in a closed syllable as expected, but it is hard to say that [ju] and [u] occur mostly in the expected contexts. It is also found that /j?/ occurs only in a word-medial unstressed open syllable and that the favorite onset of a /u/-syllable is /l, r/, the reason of which is to be studied in the future.